A method and support environment for distributed software component engineering

Engineering component based software systems is challenging, and made even more difficult when multiple developers are involved. A suitable software process for distributed component engineering is required, along with appropriate development notations and collaborative work supporting tools. The paper describes a component engineering methodology we have been developing, along with examples of its notations, development tools and tool collaborative work facilities. Key characteristics of the process and notations include their use of multiple perspectives on component capabilities and the extension of the Unified Modelling Language to capture these. We have integrated and extended several software tools to support the use of this new component engineering method. We have also provided a range of collaborative work facilities in these tools to facilitate collaborative component engineering. We illustrate some of these tools in use during multi-user development, and briefly discuss the architectural realisation of these tools and their integration